Despite giving multiple interviews to KRDO-NEWS13, KKTV5/30 and the GAZETTE, the reform voice of the Colorado Springs health care debate must have been quashed by the news directors, if ever they would have aired. Fortunately Mark Lewis of CSAction recorded the events.
I don’t know if I’ve published this here or not or how I packaged it. But for background, the “p” stands for “piastre” a South VietNamese coin that was worth a little less than a quarter of a U.S. penny. This was the “Great Free Market Opportunity” our government was sending people to fight and die to defend. The way I heard it on some occasions it’s used to condemn the VietNamese people.”How nasty and vile and filthy they are” for living in such poverty.
But it was the VietNamese version of a washroom attendant, a little old granny lady… “Wipe your ass for you, GI… 2p, 2p do extra good job 2p, 2p…”
Yes, we were there, so it seems, to give the people such a wonderful Free Market and the opportunity to wipe our asses for less than a half a cent per “use”.
And to despise them for being so desperately poor.
I wasn’t there, my sources were, so what if you say it’s false?
Talk to them, those who are still alive that is.
Now there’s a war going on in Honduras, backed exclusively by U.S. and Canadian corporations, to topple a “Dictator” who was going to nationalize the resources of Honduras and make the U.S. and Canadian corporations pay more than the 3-4 dollars a day for the labor of the People of Honduras.
The police and military have been battling in the streets for a week now, busting the heads of “elitists” who are trying to “enslave” everybody in Honduras. They did this in a Military coup ahead of an election that the “Dictator” probably would have won.
That there’s no CIVILIANS out busting the heads of these “elitists” and “Communist Radicals” tells a far different story than you might hear on, say, Fox News or in the Colorado Springs Gazette.
In Nicaragua the goon-squads were called “Contras” and backed by the same people who bring us Fox News and the Gazette. They bombed and shot up schools, orphanages, churches and hospitals, and “our” government called them Heroes and Freedom Fighters.
In Mexico, the PAN party has been running the show for a while now. They took over from the “socialist radicals” in the PRI party and for the same reason as Honduras, and Nicaragua, and South VietNamese, to give the people “Freedom” and the unfettered “Free Market” and all the benefits of Capitalism.
Doug Lamborn and Tancredo and Michelle Malkin tell us so, thus, it must be true.
They also tell us that the economy in Mexico after two and a half terms of a PAN controlled “Free” government, so filled with opportunity… is somehow oh.. how does one make this sound logical… fueling a massive wave of Illegal Immigration into the United States. By people seeking to feed their families.
Record Numbers in fact.
My my my my my… give them all the Benefits of a Reagan-inspired Libertarian Free Market and their country falls to shit and more of the people have to flee poverty and come here to find work.
Like the KTEL commercials used to say “Now how much would you pay? BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!”
They’re wanting to expand the same Corporate Free Market Rule all across the United States as well, promising us such wonderful Economic Freedom and Opportunity…
Wipe your ass GI, 2p, 2p…
COLORADO SPRINGS- The corporate media led by Fox News, local talk radio led by KVOR, and the Gazette editorial page itself, herded their red sheep into Acacia Park today for lunch-time speeches full of hate, ignorance, and good old-fashioned unapologetic self-interest. They didn’t understand my sign, but knew enough to scowl.
Gazette representative Maria St. Louis-Sanchez was live-blogging the event, sitting on the ground beside the stage, which gave her an appropriate lack of perspective for the coverage she intended. For example, this online exchange:
12:33 [Comment From Guest] Is it basically an all white gathering?
12:34 Tough to tell. There seems to be a good mix of people here.
Oh my goodness. The crowd was ALL WHITE! With the lonely exception of deposed-councilman Ed Jones, who delighted the crowd when he proclaimed he was not an African American, he was an American, and derided those critics who would call him an “Uncle Tom.” The crowd cheered Jones, there were even chants exhorting him to run for governor. But if this had been nightfall, and one depression earlier, this is the mob that would have lynched him.
And I’m inclined to imagine that had Jones been Hispanic American, judging from the anti-immigrant rhetoric, they would have jumped him in broad daylight today.
These were ugly Americans, led by their representative uglies, hate-radio DJ Richard Randall, representative Doug “Porky” Lamborn, the illiterate Quixote Douglas Bruce and business-homophobe Ed Bircham. All pure archetypes of disgruntled white males.
The demographics in my estimation were all white, mostly male, with ugly carved into everyone’s faces from years of being disagreeable and bitter. And a plentiful predominance of pasty obesity.
COLORADO SPRINGS- The Coloradans For Peace parade entry got good coverage this year, from KRDO13, FOX21, and the GAZETTE, which reported the full text of our banner. Reporter Lance Benzel interviewed a number of us, and I was hoping to see one of the responses he was tickled to get from Devon, aged 11. Asked whether she was fazed by sporadic negative responses, she replied “No. They’re just uninformed.”
Devon, by the way, wasn’t going to participate in the parade, owing to the events she witnessed two years ago when marchers were brutalized by the police. But the responsibility of taking pictures got the better of her, so she accompanied the large banner, sometimes running out ahead for artistic license.
Back to my question. No doubt too many of you notice that there are no photographs of you in the St Patrick’s Day Parade. We were a little short-handed, so perhaps if you have pictures of your own, please do share.
Although the action went without a hitch, we definitely could have used extra marchers for the flag waiving and the kazoos. Rita had plenty more shamrock shaped placards, some which honored Elizabeth Fineron, others which warned of the Intelligence Fusion Centers which are begining to dominate domestic law enforcement in the name of Homeland Security.
No really, where were you on Saturday? Maybe you see plentiful options for speaking out against war. If marching with a banner reminding thousands that OCCUPATION IS A CRIME seems too confrontational to you, perhaps you favor doing something else. And what is it? Because I wasn’t aware that doing nothing is an option for activists.
Are you against the wars and occupations a little bit? More than a little bit? A lot? Are you for peace, a little bit, or a lot?
Between doing something, and doing nothing, which best describes your effort?
By not supporting the local peace efforts, whatever they are, you are certainly giving silent consent to the war parties. And by sabotaging local peace efforts you are without a doubt supporting the war. What cowards you’ve become. Self-censoring cowards.
In this day and age, science has finally located the Black Hole of Human Stupidity and it is centered on Colorado State Senator Dave Schultheis, elected representative of Colorado State Senate District 9. That’s quite a dishonor, but Dave fully deserves the distinction. I mean today, how many public officials have Joseph McCarthy listed as a great American patriotic hero on their website? That’s major league Black Hole of Stupidity if there ever was one and the people of State District 9 elected this twit! Let his love of American fascist Joe McCarthy be expressed in his own words.
Here he answers a man who wrote him opposed to his legislative support for mandatory recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance…
6. Your passing references to McCarthy are noted. I would encourage you to do some reading on Mr. McCarthy. The modern myth about him serves the political agenda of the anti-American crowd, but it does not serve history or the nation very well. McCarthy was a golden boy from Wisconsin, the youngest sitting judge ever appointed in that state, and the youngest man to be elected from that state to the U.S. Senate. He married a Washington beauty queen after moving to the capital. Because of his natural talent and intellectual and moral strength, he was on the fast track to high places. He sacrificed his personal ambitions in order to confront no-kidding Communists who had infiltrated the U.S. at high levels, and his efforts helped lead to the conviction of Alger Hiss and other documented Communist spies. Secret Soviet cables known as the Venona Project which were declassified in 1995 have removed any doubt about this. It may sound far-fetched, given all the modern nonsense you have heard about McCarthy, but his true legacy was not one of forcing patriotism on innocent little children, an association you seem to draw. It was one of courageous, though imperfect, defense of the world’s freest and best political institutions. Again, I commend him to your prudent investigation.
I hope this helps you understand my point of view, and that of others advocating both formal, public patriotism, and inner, personal patriotism. This country is great. This country is good. Loving it deeply enough to advocate public ceremonies which reflect that love is not dangerous, but healthy. Naturally, I would be happy to answer your open letter, should you care to send one, with one of my own.
Best regards to you, and thank you again for taking the time both to write and follow up.
Dave Schultheis
See Rep. Schultheis Responds to Constituent on Pledge of Allegiance
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Want more words of wisdom from this homophobic and immigrant-phobic dingbat, Dave Schultheis? How about his website’s headliner quote against being tolerant? Here it is then…
“Tolerance is a virtue of a man without convictions.” — G. K. Chesterton, who strongly influenced C.S. Lewis
So who is this G.K. Chesterton whose quote Schultheis puts on his website? He became a major Catholic apologist right at the time that the Catholic Church was solidly fascist in its sentiments in countries like Spain and Italy. Here below is part of wikipedia’s description of Chesterton…
Accusations of anti-Semitism
Both Chesterton and Belloc have faced accusations of anti-Semitism during their lifetimes and subsequently.[17] Their criticisms of the “international Jewish banking families” are some of the most important reasons for these accusations. For example, Chesterton, Belloc, and Chesterton’s brother Cecil, were vehement critics of the Isaacs, who were involved in the Marconi scandal in the years before World War I.[18] George Orwell accused Chesterton of being guilty of “endless tirades against Jews, which he thrust into stories and essays upon the flimsiest pretexts.”[19]In The New Jerusalem, Chesterton made it clear that he believed that there was a “Jewish Problem” in Europe, in the sense that he believed that Jewish culture (not Jewish ethnicity) separated itself from the nationalities of Europe.[20] He suggested the formation of a Jewish homeland as a solution, and was later invited to Palestine by Jewish Zionists who saw him as an ally in their cause. In 1934, after the Nazi Party took power in Germany he wrote that:
In our early days Hilaire Belloc and myself were accused of being uncompromising Anti-Semites. Today, although I still think there is a Jewish problem, I am appalled by the Hitlerite atrocities. They have absolutely no reason or logic behind them. It is quite obviously the expedient of a man who has been driven to seeking a scapegoat, and has found with relief the most famous scapegoat in European history, the Jewish people.[21]
The Wiener Library (London’s archive on anti-semitism and Holocaust history) has defended Chesterton against the charge of anti-Semitism: “he was not an enemy, and when the real testing time came along he showed what side he was on.”[22]
Chesterton condemned the Nuremberg Laws, and he died in 1936, as the Hitlerite antisemitic measures were temporarily decreased due to the Berlin Olympics, long before lethal persecution by the Nazis would start.
G. K. Chesterton From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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More? Here is State Senator Schultheis touting sales of a book that decries homosexuals as being just what? …’The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today’! See Intolerant Dave on Homosexuality
Hey, did you know that? They are the principal threat to religious freedom protected by none other than Dave Schultheis! (and CS daily, The Gazette! They share this nutty view that Christians are under major attack, too). Poor Christians…. Who can save them from the fags?
Yes, Dave Schultheis of Colorado State District 9 is lost in a Black Hole of Stupidity, but that’s North Colorado Springs for you! And Dave Schultheis is one of the few remaining living, openly McCarthyite fossils left in America! Incredible! And how he manages to fuse together MLK with Joseph McCarthy is an amazing feat! Only in Colorado do we have such genius! It’s an amazing place!
COLORADO SPRINGS- Ted Haggard’s inconvenient sex life surfaces again! And this time the scandal is all New Life’s. Ted Haggard’s PR talk show onslaught to remake his image has prompted an altar boy to go public. But it seems this violates an agreement the young man made with New Life in the aftermath of the Haggard prostitute meth-habit scandal.
According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, New Life Church leader Brady “Boyd said the church reached a legal settlement to pay the man for counseling and college tuition, with one condition being that none of the parties involved discuss the matter publicly.”
First let’s clarify what New Life has failed to make clear. The young man was in his “early twenties” when he approached the church about the relations between he and Haggard. According to Boyd, the “inappropriate, consensual sexual relationship” had gone on for “a long period of time.” The church denies that the young man might have been a minor when it began.
Second, according to a letter sent to its congregation members as a result of the new revelations, New Life Church admits now that it has “received reports of a number of incidents of inappropriate behavior.”
In light of Ted Haggard trying to repaint himself as a victim in an HBO documetary, and on Oprah Winfrey, and an upcoming Larry King Live, the New Life ex-volunteer now wants to go public with his story.
While the church told the public, and its congregation, that Haggard’s impropriety did not extend beyond the Denver prostitute, it looks like New Life Church deliberately kept this story under wraps, despite an “overwhelming pool of evidence” to indicate otherwise. In the face of the hush-up coming to light, their official response is even more duplicitous.
“It wasn’t at all a settlement to make him be quiet or not tell his story,” Boyd said. “Our desire was to help him. Here was a young man who wanted to get on with his life. We considered it more compassionate assistance – certainly not hush money. I know that’s what everyone will want to say because that’s the most salacious thing to say, but that’s not at all what it was.”
An agreement to keep quiet appears to have been what New Life Church thought “it was.” Asked whether the church will pursue legal procedures against the young man, Boyd replied:
“We have legal standing to do that, but not the desire to.”
If in fact they were committing lawful actions.
Instead we have multiple incidents of the Independent Reporting, as in not the reporters embedded into the IDF, being met with IDF gunfire.
The one incident which makes the point the clearest about the
Restrictions On Reporting From Gaza
* The Israeli authorities are not allowing foreign journalists free entry into Gaza.
* The Foreign Press Association recently held a lottery for the first eight foreign media organisations to be given access to Gaza. Sky did not win a ticket in this first round.
* Sky News, like other foreign media outlets, is relying on local Palestinian freelancers inside Gaza to give us the latest information.
* Some military details may be subject to censorship by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). This is standard for all media organisations operating out of Israel.
…is the one in which 3 Palestinian children who were Murdered by the IDF because their father dared to report from Gaza things that the Israeli Propaganda Ministry, some of whom have been posting rather heavily on this forum, Did Not Want Published.
Incidentally, the woman who reported this in the Pittsburgh paper is Jewish.
Voice of Palestinians loses 3 daughters to Israeli shell[/b]
Saturday, January 17, 2009
By Sadie Gurman, Pittsburgh Post-GazetteFor weeks, Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish watched war devastate his town in northern Gaza, huddling at home with his eight children as shells exploded and fire roared just outside their door.
From his home in Jebalia via speakerphone, Dr. Abu al-Aish shared his fears Thursday evening with a Squirrel Hill audience. “Today, Gaza was completely dark because of the flames from the explosions and the destruction,” he told the crowd gathered at the Jewish Community Center to voice concern over the ongoing fighting.
YouTube Video of Israeli TV speaking with Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish
He said he lives in constant worry for the safety of his family. “I am sitting helpless, looking in my children’s eyes, while they’re wondering which one of us will be lost. … I am helpless in front of my children. If I lost them, what would be my life?”
Hours after connecting with his Pittsburgh audience, Dr. Abu al-Aish’s home was hammered by an Israeli artillery shell, killing three of his daughters and a niece and severely injuring two daughters. Eighteen of his relatives were in the home at the time.
Israeli TV said initial reports indicated that a sniper had fired either from the family’s building — which friends quoted on TV said they doubted — or from nearby. The Israeli infantry responded with a tank shell.
Throughout the 21-day war, Dr. Abu al-Aish has been providing Israeli TV viewers with updates on the medical crisis unfolding in Gaza. For many, he is the voice of Palestinian suffering. But yesterday, his report was different.
“I want to know why my daughters were harmed,” he said on TV. “This should haunt [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert his entire life.”
Dr. Abu al-Aish was able to arrange transfer of his two injured daughters to Israeli hospitals, a rarity in this conflict. The Israeli army for the first time allowed a Palestinian ambulance to travel straight to the Erez border crossing, where the injured were transferred to Israeli ambulances. From there, they were taken by helicopter to Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv.
Gazan officials identified Dr. Abu al-Aish’s daughters fatally injured as Bisan, 22; Mayer, 15; and Aya, 14. His dead niece was Nour Abu al-Aish, also 14.
Dr. Abu al-Aish, 55, is a longtime peace activist who has promoted joint Israeli-Palestinian projects and studied the war’s affects on children. “What is happening is not the right way, from both sides,” he said Thursday night to his Squirrel Hill audience. The tragedy stunned those who took part in the Jewish Community Center discussion.
“When you know people, it makes a big difference,” said Nancy Bernstein. “We happened to hear this man, with his children around him, and now, his children are dead. It’s very shocking.”
Others said the deaths underscored the need for a swift end to the violence. “If the Israeli government had announced a cease-fire this morning, Ezzeldeen’s kids would be alive,” said Dr. Naftali Kaminski, a UPMC associate professor of medicine and pathology and longtime friend of the Palestinian doctor. He said he learned of the deaths from a nephew in Israel.
“This is a guy who, all of his life, was dedicated to two things: One is peace and reconciliation between Jews and Palestinians, and the other one is taking care of his patients,” Dr. Kaminski said. “This is devastating.”
There was also a 22 year old woman murdered in the attack.
I put in emphasis and Extra Emphasis on certain key elements in the story, because I know the IDF supporters habit of hiding behind the “Anti-Semitism” argument to deflect criticism.
Perhaps here I should point out that same Scriptural “right of return” touted loudly by the Knesset would also apply to the Palestinians in equal measure.
Because the Samaritans are Israel too…
Either the Scriptures are false, in which case Israel doesn’t exist, or they’re true, in which case both Israel AND Palestine have equal rights to exist.
IS THE US-ARMY-BEDMATE-GAZETTE GOING TO REPORT THIS STORY? Salon Magazine was leaked helmet-cam video showing the 2006 deaths of two US soldiers in Ramadi, by friendly fire, which the US Army is still attributing to Iraqi insurgents. Within hours of breaking the story, soldiers working in Fort Carson offices were ordered to shred the documents relating to the slain PFCs. Fortunately Salon was leaked this development as well.
Watch the video. Pay no heed to the warnings of graphic violence and profanity. What the tape reveals is the inanity of all the soldiers’ conduct. First, a very imprudent peek through a window at a US tank, which more than likely prompted the tank to fire. As a result, the helmet wearer is knocked to the floor, a soldier on the floor above is wounded (and dies), and another on the roof is killed. What followed was discussion about whether the tank had fired the single round, countered by the commanding officer repeating that the official attribution would be mortar fire until a report proved otherwise. Despite that fact that all the soldiers coming up to the commander are reporting that the tank had fired, and he tells them “I agree with you–.” Also, during the entire sequence no other shot is heard.
It will be interesting to see what Fort Carson intended to accomplish by shredding the records of PFCs Albert Nelson and Roger Suarez. In particular because some of the documents were spirited aside and sent to Salon. Was the Army intending to produce revised versions to support their official report of the soldiers deaths?
COLORADO SPRINGS- The Gazette has video footage of city firefighters arriving at the El Paso County election offices at Centennial Hall on the evening of election day, Nov. 4th, just as Clerk and Recorder Bob Balink exits the building. RNC delegate Balink’s possibly illegal ban of news crews from all county polling places, did not prevent cameras outside from documenting the 8:20pm fire alarm which delayed the tabulation of election results. Here’s the official CSFD DUTY REPORT for UNIT E1C.
Incident No. 838997
Alarm Time: 20:20
Dispatched: 20:21
Arrived: 20:24
In-Service: 20:54ATAL-Detector Operated Due to Particle Contamination
E1 to scene for automatic fire alarm sounding, unknown further.
E1 arrival to a single story government building, fire resistive construction, no visible signs of emergency, evacuation completed. Investigation of fire alarm panel, activation of detector in zone 5. Further investigation shows activation of detector, apparently due to dust, in basement level electrical closet. Facilities maintenance on scene completed successful reset of system after cleaning out detector. No further action required, E1 return to service.
Two articles caught my eye in this morning’s Gazette, and I’d like to thank the editors for putting them side by side. The first lauded El Paso County’s strong Republican push-back to the Obama landslide, the other illuminated Clerk and Recorder Bob Balink’s dubiously legal measures at the EPC polling stations. Do the Gazette editors think, as I, that one of these stories could have a bearing on the other?
The first article was written with the partisanship we’re used to from the Gazette. In face of this election’s “blue tsunami,” El Paso County remained high and dry. Can we read this any other way than meaning “safe” and Republican (red), in the face of the Obama danger? The article detailed how El Paso County voted against the prevailing tide. Even the Democratic candidates who won elsewhere were “stomped” here. Stomped –like cockroaches?
The adjacent article was about the Clerk and Recorder. It reported that on election day, the media had been banned from the local polling places. This measure was in defiance of common practice and, the question was raised, even election law. Apparently, lawsuits may follow.
Mention was also made of Balink’s attempt to intimidate Colorado College students.
Did the media ban mask inappropriate election worker activity? Had the CC letter deterred student voters?
The article did not mention a yet-to-be investigated story, the mysterious fire alarm at Centennial Hall, a half hour after voting closed. Everyone had to leave the building. By the way, the fire alarm tactic is a recurring theme if you’ve watched video reports of past election irregularities, in this new age of the self-deputized citizen poll watcher.
Centennial Hall was not only the main poll station downtown, and the chief early voting location, it was the central office into which all the El Paso County precincts reported their election results. Might there be a story here?
The article also didn’t address why in El Paso County, paper ballots were not permitted for early voters. Only Diebold touch-screen machines were available for the early birds, who one might guess would have been the most activated of the new wave.
This is, as all presidential election years are, a circus year of American comedy at its best! I mean, we got a gift from John McCain of his female Dan Quail, Sarah Pale In town even! Still, imagine my surprise to see today’s edition of our Far Right Wing daily paper (The Gagzette) with a prominent headline for our city’s only active Communist Party member, 
Vivian! She’s been the deliverer of the Communist Party’s national newspaper around town for years now (and a reporter for that paper, too!), but apparently our Gazette ‘reporters’, ‘editors’, and ‘newsmen’ are unaware of that!????? Go figure?
They probably are aware though, that Barack Obama is a Big Bad American Communist? I mean, we are dealing with world class geniuses over that at Freedom Communications, Inc… lol. I hope that they do not now inform the national crowd about Barack Obama’s connections to Colorado Spring’s Communist Movement, now that they are getting the real scoop about my friend Vivian, the CP reporter and paper deliverer?
OK, here’s the link to the Gazette’s pro- Communist Party activity, though you have to buy the paper’s hard copy to get the full effect, as their website really doesn’t give a good idea of how much they actually headlined their pro-CP coverage. I’ll be laughing through the next year over this one, you can bet on that! Campaigners on different sides, but have same passion
Go Vivian! I love you even if you are an evil commie! Give me a call so we can get together some! I’m not surprised that you are pushing for Obama.
Could it be that the Colorado Springs Gazette’s editors are Lenin’s useful idiots? For more about the American Communist Party, go to The Gus Hall Fan Club website …I know that our local paper would want you to do that! Go useful idiot team at our local Gagzette! Good work! I’m still not voting for Barack Obama though.
COLORADO SPRINGS- The Colorado Independent has reported a new salvo in El Paso County’s Clerk & Recorder Bob Balink’s usual anti-election measures. Balink is IN CHARGE of all local polling outlets, he’s partisan as GOP SHIT, he’s faced accusations before, and this latest move seems to betray what he thinks he can get away with. Though Balink’s election-year tradition of intimidating Colorado College students was this time rebuked, his comeback should land him in jail.
Every election year, Colorado College are warned by El Paso County administrators that if they try to register in the county, they might be breaking the law. When the same strategy was tried this year, the students struck back with a newspaper article dispelling the untruthful scare tactic. Bob Balink’s staff had to backpedal in public, but the CC journalists have received another salvo.
This letter was sent to CC on behalf of El Paso County, drafted by a Denver attorney. It explained that registering in El Paso County:
“can have cascading effects”
“could affect the students and their parents financially.”
have “ramifications that go far beyond where they cast their ballot.”
“could result in criminal penalties.”
“can jeopardize their parents’ ability to claim the student as a dependent”
“could end up costing the parents the $3,500 tax deduction.”
“could impact … health insurance plan or auto insurance policy.”
“could have a rough awakening”
Here is the full text of the letter:
The September 24th article [in the Colorado Springs Gazette], “Balink under fire for error on CC voter registration”, gives significant attention to whether Colorado College students are able to register to vote, yet little attention is given to the consequences of doing so.
Advocates, such as Senator John Morse, Martha Tierney, and Pat Waak, are correct in stating that there are no prohibitions on Colorado College students registering to vote. Nevertheless, out-of-state students should do so with their eyes wide open. Registering to vote in Colorado can have cascading effects that could affect the students and their parents financially.
When an individual registers to vote in Colorado, they make an affirmation that they are a resident of Colorado. The statement of residency exceeds merely being present in the state. The affirmation also includes abandoning prior residency in other states. Additionally, it makes departure from the student’s home permanent rather than temporary.
This distinction of a student living here temporarily or establishing a domicile has ramifications that go far beyond where they cast their ballot. Colorado law allows students who are here temporarily to maintain vehicle registration and drivers licenses in their home state. Once an out-of-state student registers to vote and declares Colorado as their state of residency, all the additional obligations of residency attach. These obligations include both vehicle registration and obtaining a Colorado drivers license. Failure to do either of these acts could result in criminal penalties. Are the students who are the targets of voter registration drives informed of these consequences? Are they aware of the big picture impact of signing the voter registration form?
Beyond the student’s new obligations related to Colorado state residency, there are other potential consequences to establishing residency as a student. Out-of-state students who are claimed as dependents by their parents can jeopardize their parents’ ability to claim the student as a dependent on their taxes. Establishing a new domicile outside of the parents’ home state could end up costing the parents the $3,500 tax deduction. The establishment of a new domicile could impact the student’s dependency status that is required for eligibility under the parents’ health insurance plan or auto insurance policy. Students who intend to return to a state school in their home state for graduate school could have a rough awakening when they find out that they have to pay out-of-state tuition because they have lost their previous in-state status. These are complex issues that must be addressed.
It is worth noting that an out-of-state student can still participate in the election by requesting an absentee ballot from their home state, if that is where they are registered. The voter registration drives that are targeting Colorado College students have a moral obligation to inform them of the impacts of their voter registration and to suggest that they consult with their parents prior to registering.
While groups that work to increase involvement in the electoral process should be applauded, blindly pushing students to register in Colorado, even when doing so could be to their detriment, is wrong. Registering out-of-state students in Colorado without fully disclosing the potential impacts of such registration borders on exploitation.
For further information contact:
Zakhem-Atherton LLC
303-228-1200
Mr. Erik Groves
Denver, CO
While I’m picking on Colorado College, have a look at what passes for journalism at the Catalyst:
The McCain/Palin RNC speeches had already been exposed for lies by the time the two visited Colorado Springs. But the candidates repeat their earmarks/reform misrepresentations which reporters parrot without so much as a raised eyebrow. Even now the corporate media won’t call the GOP on their doublespeak. I guess neither will CC journalism students.
What kind of cheerleading did the students feel had been left out of the Gazette and Denver Post coverage? The reporter described the Colorado Springs streets lined on both sides with McCain supporters, without a mention of the prominent presence of the protesters. What a shame/sham.
No doubt a Communications Major now requires a class in UNETHICS. Who am I to judge students trying to qualify for jobs in today’s corporate state? Once more Colorado College students confirm their school’s common function as purveyor of Neo-liberal Arts.
I’d actually like to draw your attention to the article at the upper right of the front page, about the campus NEW ALCOHOL POLICY. While the drinking age in Colorado remains 21, Colorado College is relaxing its enforcement of underage drinking. This would be applicable to two thirds of the CC student body. Apparently being able to drink is a benefit the college would like to provide, regardless the laws of Colorado.
Colorado College has had its share of drinking fatalities, and neighborhood disturbances, but I guess having a campus conducive to partying would be too important to infringe upon. Especially as CC’s academic successes warrant their students being able to kick back.
Really, the college does have a stellar faculty, but even their assessment of the caliber of today’s students has perhaps become myopic. Unless the quality of America’s students as a whole has degraded to this untenable uneducable extreme.
Wake up CC alums, your campus is gone to the dogs. Drunken wet ignorant dogs. I can’t think of what could smell worse.
Last week the Gazette reported that Colorado Springs had been found to have methadone and Valium in our tap water, making us one mellow city indeed. Drugs found in Springs water This news was reported in the Denver papers, too, but nobody mentioned where the drugs were coming from?
You probably thought it was coming from drug addicts in their private castles, right? Well… wrong. And don’t look for investigative reporting from the local papers to correct your lack of info either. From the national AP we learn from where these drugs were most likely released into our tap water, and it may surprise you, or not? Tons of Drugs Dumped Into Wastewater
The drugs probably came into the Colorado Springs water supply by way of the local hospitals, Penrose and Memorial? Hey, they wanted the waters to be mellow in the Springs! Don’t grow old waiting for The Gazette to do some follow up reporting on this one. It most likely just won’t happen…
For months now there have been Hindu attacks on India’s Christian communities but America’s Christians remain silent about their cohorts abroad just as they previously have remained silent about Jewish attacks on Christian communities in the Middle East. Orissa mob attacks police station
Christian Rightists in America are too busy trying to whip up an anti-Muslim hysteria in the US to be distracted by the antics of India, which is a country they want to use in their Holy Crusades. Besides, who really cares about the lower castes of India anyway? Certainly not American Christians who support a caste system just about everywhere, with American Christians to be located exactly as the top caste. Christian America has kept entirely quiet about this violence in India, a violence they used to cry about when India was a more ‘non-aligned’ country (more aligned with the evil communist Soviet Union, say..) .
Speaking of how crazy the American Christian community can get, did anybody notice The Colorado Springs Gazette editorial today? No? … lol… Well it railed and ranted against what they declared was an atheist who wanted to behead 2 people for merely being Christians! I kid you not! They called the gun toting neighbor who knocked out one eye of the drunk (for that’s all this fight was really about, a drunk acting out) a ‘hero’, since he had guns! Oh Whooptee Doo!
Yes, it seems that with Sarah Palin now in the act nationwide, that the Right Wing Christian community thinks its time once again for their rampaging loonieness to prevail big time? God save us from your followers, PLEASE. And God save us from The Gazette’s editorial nutiness, too.
And, God, you might notice that some of your good people are getting the shit kicked out of them in India? Oh so what? It’s forward march to kill some more Muslims time, is it not? God is great! America is God! Forward Christian soldiers!
COLORADO SPRINGS- If you’re not going to watch the propaganda on CNN/FOX/”24″ they’ll bring it to you! Inserted in this morning’s Gazette was OBSESSION: RADICAL ISLAM’S WAR AGAINST THE WEST, a DVD distributed by The Clarion Fund and promoted by Alan Dershowitz. Why a free copy of a 2006 crockumentary now? This “non-partisan organization devoted to educating the public about national security issues” wants us to check out www.radicalislam.org because “it’s our responsibility to ensure we can all make an informed vote in November.” And the DVD insert went to newspapers in SWING STATES!
The DVD wrapper features a blurb by Michael Medved, the pro-war Zionist cloaked as mild-mannered film critic. Says Medved, “Obsession is one of the most powerful, expertly crafted and undeniably important films I’ve seen this year…” No mention that the year was 2006, and the made-for-a-previous-US-election quasi-documentary has already been widely debunked as racist propaganda. An executive producer of “24” intones: “… required viewing for everyone.”
Oh, and of course Edmund Burke’s helpful nudge: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
Bad enough that this insert went to the Gazette’s 100k readership, it also went out with the newspapers below. This is more than the FREEDOM COMMUNICATION chain, it includes the NYT and the WSJ.
Do you detect a Swing-State pattern where Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia predominate?
Paid Advertising Supplement to: Akron Beacon, Altoona Mirror, Ann Arbor News, Blade, Bucks Co. Courier Times, Centennial Citizen, Chronicle of Higher Education, Cincinnati Enquirer, Claremont Review, Clovis News Journal, Columbus Dispatch, Daily Camera, Daily Commercial, Daily Nonpareil, Dayton Daily News, Denver Post, Des Moines Register, Detroit Free Press, Erie Times-News, Examiner, Flint Journal, Florida Times-Union, Fort Collins Coloradoan, Ft. Lauderdale El Sentinel, Ft. Meyers News Press, Gazette, Grand Rapids Press, Greeley Tribune, Green Bay Press-Gazette, Hobbs News-Sun, Iowa City Press Citizen, Janesville Gazette, Journal News, Journal Times, La Crosse Tribune, Lansing State Journal, Las Vegas Review-Journal/Sun, Miami-El Nuevo Herald, Miami Herald, Middletown Journal, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Morning Call, Morning Journal, Nevada Appeal, New Appeal, New Hampshire Union Leader, News-Leader, New York Times, Ocala Star Banner, Orlando Sun Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Patriot-News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Portsmouth Herald, Quad-City Times, Reading Eagle, Reno Gazette-Journal, Repository, Rio Rancho Observer, Sioux City Journal, South Bend Tribune, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, St. Petersburg Times, Sun-Gazette, Tallahassee Democrat, Tampa Tribune, Toledo Blade, Tribune, Tribune-Review, Vindicator, Virginian-Pilot, Wall Street Journal, World Jewish Digest.
The Blue states of Iowa, New York and Wisconsin seem also to have been targeted…
I’ve got a few documentaries to recommend for everyone. In particular Colorado Springs. First, how about FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO about the means American Fundamentalist Churches sow division and hatred between peoples. Its climax is set in the Springs, but no local commercial movie theater will dare screen the film. It did visit Colorado College, so we’ll have more to report on the film and its director later.
FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO -Trailer
Next, a recent investigation into the forces moving behind the sensationalizing of NINE/ELEVEN. It’s called FABLED ENEMIES and you can view it online.FABLED ENEMIES
Also online is an investigation of the tragedy of the USS Liberty, an American Navy surveillance ship that had the misfortune to witness the Israeli preemptive attack on Egypt in 1967. LOSS OF LIBERTY recounts how Israeli jets were forced to attack the Americans to cover their tracks, killing 34 sailors and wounding 171, and the US administration had to cover-up the incident because it was determined to keep portraying Israel as America’s ally.LOSS OF LIBERTY
COLORADO SPRINGS- Extradited desertion/political refugee Robin Long, spent several weeks jailed in Fort Carson after being refused political asylum in Canada. An army court let Long plead guilty to the charge of desertion based on a plea bargain agreement. The local PPJPC held vigils to publicize Long’s plight, and it turns out, did a little bit more.
In a just published letter to the Independent, indefatigably blow hardy local attorney Bill Durland was revealed to have been co-counsel. Durland assisted with arranging the guilty plea and as a result, Robin Long was sentenced to one and a quarter years in Leavenworth. Thanks a lot I’m sure.
Was Robin Long a war resister? Who would think he’d want to quit resisting being told by the Army what to do? Long fled to Canada because he wanted to be NOT GUILTY of war crimes. These have been his own arguments: Every soldier has a right to refuse illegal orders. The war in Iraq has been determined by international bodies to be an illegal war. Why is Robin Long pleading guilty?
Already reported was that Long’s first character witness was also someone from the PPJPC, whom Long had only just recently met, through three visitations. It was the mysteriously socially inept Pete Haney, the new-hire Dynamic Peace Director who’s presided over that organization’s declining participation. The Gazette reported Haney’s helpful testimony on behalf of Robin Long:
“I’ve observed Mr. Long in situations that would be trying to just about anyone,” Haney said. “He seemed to me to be extremely poised and lucid.”
In Colorado Springs it’s not enough that you find yourself up a creek without a paddle, you’ll find “friends” who’ll make sure to put holes in your canoe.
COLORADO SPRINGS- The comical Gazette editorial staff today ranted against the Colorado Springs area’s atheist community in a headliner opinion piece, where the stalethinkers of The Gazette pedantically explained in their Bible Talk editorial opinion column ‘why rude guests are not welcome’.
The highlight of this comic strip was the stalethinker writer claiming that the atheists were ‘rude’ just from calling themselves ‘freethinkers’. That hurts their Christian feelings…booh-hoo-hoo… bring out the red, white, and blue hankies now. They claimed that ‘a few atheists have their panties in a twist again’ unlike the ever so courteous Gazette stalethinkers!
The stalethinkers base all their beliefs, they would have us believe…lol, because they are not free enough in their thinking to not follow the Bible all the time (but not so literally since they love killing so much). They believe in a stalethinking brand of Christianity that says the rich are God’s Chosen Ones, because they can freely and stalely kick the poor around all the time. Not to mention blow them up, shoot them down, and waterboard them at will.
I love these stalethinker farts from The Gazette! They called me up recently (3 weeks ago) and said that my subscription had expired several months ago, whereupon I replied let it be so! I’m still getting the staleness though? What should I do, tell them that I shall sue them unless they pay me for delivery to my house of their rag? I feel like I am ecologically personally destroying the planet by allowing this stalemate to continue. Adverts for Kohls, Safeway, Kroger, and Albertsons be damned! I don’t got religion like the stalethinkers at The Gazette do!
The US government has released a study done by the government itself, that declares that over 2/3 of both American and foreign corporations pay no taxes here. This is truly a robbing hood society where the working poor are forced to fund the government paid welfare that most corporations in the US feed off, and the corporate dictatorship running America gives its corporate patrons a free ride PLUS with taxes on top of getting its own welfare rip off payments from The State it controls. Most Companies In US Avoid Federal Income Taxes
Of course, you will not hear any complaints about this on the ‘news’ programs and Right Wing blabber mouth programs, as all you will hear is assholes ranting against the poor and racial minorities in poorly disguised manner. Plus, you will hear constant promotion of the incessant government military and Police State apparatuses. More welfare for the rich pigs, all the time, always is the blast of crap that is so constant these days. Just today our local Pig Paper, The Gazette, was complaining once again that so many folk want to fix the mess that is the corporate Health Lack-of-Medical Care Welfare gang the Insurance companies currently run against the American people.
Everywhere one looks, it is the corporations riding rough shod over human rights, democracy, and Social Justice. Everywhere it is the corporations destroying the ecology of Planet Earth. They pay little tax to the Corporate Dictatorship government to carry out their agenda against the American people. Instead they force their own victims to pay for this atrocity.
We need to get it together, People, and stop voting for these con artists that the corporate world gives us to ‘choose’ from. You know who they are… they are the Republican and Democratic Party politicians that foul up our national political life so thoroughly at present. It’s time to finally get fed up with these gangsters and ride them out of power for good!
COLORADO SPRINGS- The annual Sisters Witness Against War took an interesting step forward Friday when three sisters decided to step across the line. Ostensibly to deliver a letter which had gone thus far unanswered by the Peterson AFB commander. Event founder Barbara Huber decided she would commit herself to this act of Civil Disobedience and was joined by two others. A press release declared this intention, the Gazette was on hand to record it, and a local patrol car stood by as well.
Barbara explained her plan to the reporter. That she’d sent the letter several times but had not received a response. The only recourse she felt she had was to deliver the letter in person, to know it had reached him. Barbara also admitted knowing that the base commander was away, and so the best she could hope for was to deliver the letter into the hands of his secretary. 
Plain-clothed security had been circulating through our demonstration, asking for specifics about our intentions. When I saw them conferring with the Gazette team, I immediately worried for Barbara’s plan. If the Air Force officers learned that Barbara need only be introduced to their commander’s secretary, that person could be waiting to meet us at the gate and the whole hoopla could be averted.
Fortunately, the Peterson machos seemed all too eager to create a confrontation. As the demonstrators neared the gate, a soldier with the gait of a Carabinieri grabbed a megaphone and cautioned us away. But the sisters continued. Several soldiers donned riot helmets.
The man in pink wore a badge on his folder. He couldn’t persuade Barbara to turn back.
(More pictures at csaction.org)
EPILOGUE: PETERSON AFB HAS A RIOT SQUAD
COLORADO SPRINGS- There is a postscript to the Sisters Witness Against War arrests at Peterson AFB last Friday. Where we left off, three women stepped across the line to protest our nation’s ongoing militancy, and the base commander’s refusal to hear the consciences of pacifists. Barbara, Mary Ann and Esther were led away to be processed, handed to the police, then released. Esther told me the sight that awaited her as she was taken out of our view.
Taking this step, this year, by the way, was in honor of Elizabeth. As the three women were being escorted around the security/reception building, out of view from the protest, they encountered a line of soldiers, dressed in riot gear, being put through various drills. Asking about the apparent extremity of such measures, the women were told that this happens every time there are protests on the other side of the gate. The preparations are standard procedure.
If you can imagine what it’s like from our side, fifty or more quiet nuns usually, once or twice a year, holding home-sewn banners or small signs, facing a security booth being manned by a dozen soldiers, some with binoculars, some in plain clothes. It’s quiet and uneventful. You’d never guess there are people in riot gear being put through their paces behind the scenes.
I laugh because it’s always a nearly-spoken hope that one day we will walk toward the gate, and all of us supplicate ourselves in a compassionate plea to end the war-making. While probably every participant certainly has the courage to be arrested, decorum and a sense of pragmatism hold us back. We await a better opportunity, an impassioned leader to follow, probably. And so through the years, the sisters have only ever mounted a limited nonviolent assault on that yellow line.
This year as the arrests were wrapping up, a soldier noticed that someone’s feet had unknowingly strayed over the line. He pointed sternly and the wouldn’t-be offender hopped giddily back like a new gambler who hadn’t intended a bet.
Even this time, we murmured to ourselves, if only all of us would simply cross that line, they wouldn’t know what to do with us.
Well, as Esther’s report clarifies, they would know what to do with us. And they ready themselves every year to do it. Which has me thinking that they have a higher respect for our potential than we do ourselves. They know what’s at stake, even as we yet do not.
I struggle questioning whether we can reach across to the military mindset with our pacifist ideology. Especially as their militarism extends to dealing peace-petitioners physical blows. Will there be human consciences to reach, or just gung-ho soldier appetites to satisfy? That question holds me back.
I have a last-minute, refocused interest in a safe and not-too-disrupted Beijing Olympics. It’s already been unofficially eventful. Here’s a time line of the counter-Olympics leading-up to the Opening Ceremonies. The Gazette is in Beijing. So are we!
OC -5: Marie arrives in Beijing!
OC -4: Sixteen Chinese policemen killed in Kashgar by Uighur separatists. Two Japanese journalists beaten by police for covering story.
OC -3: Earthquake hits Sichuan Province hours after Olympic torch passes.
OC -2: Four US-UK protesters unfurl TIBET banner as torch arrives at Beijing Bird’s Nest Stadium. / Four US cyclists cause furor by stepping off the plane wearing US-issued breathing masks. / Visa revoked for TEAM DARFUR Olympian alumni. Yay!
OC -0: FREE TIBET demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. American Tourists stabbed. Assailant jumps to death. Official account. Chinese witnesses not at liberty to tell what they actually saw.
OC +1: Tibet activists ejected from Honk Kong equestrian arena. Protester sets himself on fire in Ankara.
When I visited Southern California in the mid-eighties, I was bedazzled by my boyfriend’s beachside neighborhood. Tiny stucco houses. Flowering vines crawling weatherworn trellises. Impossibly narrow streets. Sandy restaurants serving fish tacos. Cramped outdoor patios overlooking the ocean — the vast inconceivable Pacific ocean. An exciting vista for a Colorado girl.
As with all lovers’ trysts, the visceral has faded to ephemera, and I am left with only a sense of place and time. However, one tangible relic remains from my visit, and it was recently brought to mind afresh. If it’s yellow let it mellow; if it’s brown flush it down. In case you’ve not heard this California incantation, it is a reference to pee and poo, number 1 and number 2, realities that, to my mind, are best left behind stall doors. In any case, they should not be fodder for a state mantra. Drought be damned!
After many years of recklessly rejecting the admonition, I am prepared to pass California wisdom on to my Colorado offspring. Why? The Gazette reported this week that 1/3 of a typical household’s water usage goes to flushing the toilet. 1/3! I have six Kool-aid swilling children so the flushing in our house, reinforced rigidly by prissy mother me, is nonstop.
No more. New rule. If it’s yellow let it mellow; if it’s brown flush it down. I have yet to divine an apt consequence for willful disobedience.
———– The Gazette editorialist got out his little Ayn Rand ‘Atlas Shrugged’ book last Monday, waved it in the air, and pronounced it a good thing that El Paso County (Big Bad Government!) was no longer going to inspect tattoo parlors in the area. This is the same nut case at the paper that is all ‘for the troops’. Well, who does he think goes to many of these tattoo parlors? Well, it is the troops, Sir.
The Gazette is run my a bunch of sad sack ideologues who are always against Big Government, except when Big, Big, BIG GOVERNMENT is destroying somebody else’s country and making Big, Big, BIG BUSINESS a killing in tax payer paid government contracts. But when it comes to protecting the troops from getting AIDS or Hepatitis at the tattoo parlor, well The Gazette is against the County checking out the sanitation there! Sick. See below…
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July 14, 2008 – 9:57PM The Gazette
SELF-POLICING TATTOO JOINTS
Don’t involve county in body art
You walk into Bob’s Tattoos seeking service. You want a bone through your nose and the Virgin Mary etched into your arm. Something’s not right. You’re struck by the stench of kitty litter and other strange smells. You’re introduced to 300-pound Bob, the parlor’s founding partner and managing artist. Bob wears a grubby muscle shirt and Dolfin shorts to show off his own tattoos. They don’t look so good, but that’s OK because Bob explains he got them in prison, and not at Bob’s Tattoos. What do you do?
A. Look for a certificate from the county that says Bob’s OK to pierce your nose and jam ink into your skin.
B. Leave, and do some research. Speak with multiple peers with good body art, and ask them which parlors do it best. Find a reputable shop, check it through the Better Business Bureau, and then personally assess the risks.
Unless you’re ultra brave, the correct answer is “B.” After all, even Bob’s Tattoos could look good on the day of a county inspection. And even a once-good tattoo business can go downhill after getting a stamp of approval from the county.
The right tattoo on the right part of the right person can be a fine thing. But good, safe results aren’t something the county can or should try to ensure. If ever there were an activity in which the buyer must beware, it’s the business of shopping for body art.
The mere fact that so-called painful cuts to El Paso County’s budget involve the elimination of tattoo parlor inspections indicates fiscal excess. The health department has no legitimate reason for spending nearly $30,000 annually to inspect tattoo parlors.
It’s not in question that dirty body art tools can lead to infection and disease. But nobody is required to commission a tattoo, and the majority of citizens never do. It’s a risk anyone can easily avoid by simply choosing against body art. Those who do seek tattoos and such ought to be responsible for assessing the risks themselves. The tattoo-free public shouldn’t be forced to subsidize needless, private, elective bodily expressions.
The county’s Board of Health plans to vote Wednesday on whether to permanently eliminate inspections, and most certainly they should. Tattoo artists are organizing to converge on the meeting, however, urging the county to maintain inspections.
The fact that responsible tattoo parlors favor county inspections isn’t surprising. An approval certificate is like a valuable reward for good, clean practices. The inspection requirement creates a layer of bureaucracy that serves as a hurdle to entry. It dissuades cheap, startup fly-by-night operators from wanting to set up shop and compete. It also eases concerns of customers who might otherwise ask lots of questions or chicken out of getting tattooed.
Tattoo artists, however, don’t need government to give them a useful stamp of approval. Reputations speak for themselves, and stamps of approval are best obtained through private associations of professionals. Free publications that sell advertising, for example, pay private auditing associations to verify circulations. Without the audit, it’s hard to compete. Lawyers join private associations, such as the American Bar Association, that enforce standards on members and offer assurances to customers. Good tattoo artists, if they wish to separate themselves from the riffraff, need to form a credible organization that sells a stamp of approval to those who qualify.
No stamp of approval, however, should weigh in too heavily when it comes to letting someone inject ink beneath your skin. Few transactions require more personal information and diligence than the purchase of a tattoo. Good, safe tattoos aren’t something the county can or should guarantee. Nothing can replace the ages old advice: Buyer beware. Besides, tattoos are free-spirited expressions of individuality. Don’t involve the county in what’s otherwise a solid act of rebellion.
I just love the Gazette’s headline on their July 4th front page: POST IS KEEPING TABS ON ITS ‘BOOTPRINT’. Is it a cute eco play on words, or an ironic malapropism? About collateral damage, Rumsfeld famously said the US doesn’t do body counts. I am reminded of course of George’s Orwell’s foretelling: “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.”
Certainly the PR crew at Fort Carson meant to imply the equivalent of an environmental footprint in Army lingo. But footprint is itself no longer the literal track left behind you as you walk. It has come to mean the space you occupy, or the resources you consume. Or that of your computer or the printer on your desk for example. The portion of surface resources which each item displaces.
There must be a semantic fallacy which applies here, a mixed semaphore perhaps? As if you could tell me “put a sock in it.” And the Army would add “Put a BOOT in it. HA HA.”
If the Fort Carson sustainability spin doctors want to call the Army eco impact a “bootprint” instead, it probably is more accurate. Their activities have devastation-unleashing consequences. And as the interviews in the article reveal, the warrior’s real passion is in the warfare, hybred-whatsits be damned.
On this Independence Day when we’re all wishing ourselves “Happy” Patriotism, let’s reflect on the full context of Orwell’s 1984 passage:
Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.
Imagine my surprise today, to open up The Gazette and see the Metro section of the paper with a column by opinion writer Barry Noreen titled “Community should learn to welcome immigrants.” I have read this paper for two years now and had not yet found any commentary by its opinion writers that I agreed with 100%. And here it was at last!
Noreen spotlighted the efforts of Megumi Nakamura and others in the community to befriend immigrants coming into the US, rather than to persecute them. Reminds me kind of the All- American holiday Thanksgiving even, where American immigrants made an annual meal to thank those that were kind and gave them assistance. For Megumi, everyday should be Thanksgiving American style, rather than persecution American style with ICE, which is the new name La Migra has given to itself.
One thing missing from the commentary though, was any thought that most immigrants are fleeing from countries that our own US government has Big Time helped mess up. Fact is, our own government is all over the world right now, messing up the lives of other peoples. It has been this way for decades now, too. So we should try to stop allowing government officials to do that so that maybe we would have less poor people entering our US Borders looking for a new life, for their families and their kids. And we should learn to welcome those that do enter meantime.
Barry Noreen, thank you for being brave and bucking the Far Right trend over at The Gazette. It was a brave thing to have written the column the way you did. Thanks.